


Zaila

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Ramayana fics [8]
Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16187711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Mandavi’s world was thrown askew thirteen years ago with all the force of mountains uprooting, so why should a dream of the same thing unsettle her so?zaila (Sanskrit): mountain





	Zaila

Mandavi has not had a peaceful dream in thirteen years, but tonight her sleep-thoughts leave even her jaded mind flustered. She sees massive, shadowy figures slipping in and out of sight, with only a detail revealed here and there like a magician’s trick -- a long, twirling lasso dangling from the sky ( _the tail of a monkey_ some instinct whispers), the flap of a hawk’s wings, a shower of dust trailing from an overturned mountain.

She laughs silently, when she awakens to the dark hut in Nandigram. Her world was thrown askew thirteen years ago with all the force of mountains uprooting, so why should a dream of the same thing unsettle her so?

Her question is answered when she turns to see that Bharat is gone.

The most logical location to start the search is at the palace; for all that he wears the shame of unwanted kingship like a mantle, the palace still contains his remaining brother and the two mothers he acknowledges. Her instincts are rewarded when she sees him standing on the palace steps, along with Shatrughan, Shrutakirti, the Queen Mothers all, and a coterie of guards. Three or so torches are held at random intervals, providing poor illumination for the nighttime tryst.

Bharat swings between blunt and hysterical in his jumbled recollection, but this much is clear at least -- he had seen a great figure in the sky carrying a mountain, and thinking it to be an enemy, shot him down. Upon coming face to face with him, he had realized it was an enormous monkey, the son of the wind god, Hanuman.

The next news comes out in bits and pieces. A monkey army, with both her _devarji_ at its front. An army to cross the sea and reach Lanka, the demon island. Sita is imprisoned there. Sita imprisoned, Sita captured, Sita locked away by an avaricious king who sets his ogres upon her day and night. Lakshman has been felled, in the process of trying to defeat the king and save her. His situation is so dire that a monkey has deracinated an entire hill to save him.

Bharat’s deerskin robe ripples in the wind, and Mandavi thinks of golden-hued deer and illusions, of a brother dead and a sister ravished. No one looks at Kaikeyi Ma, and everyone seems to be waiting for the onslaught they all know will come.

“Life has a way of handing everything you want on a golden platter, garnished with payasam, does it not, Rajmata Kaikeyi?” Mandavi’s closest mother-in-law steps back, turns away, one hand covering her mouth. “No one can defeat Rama, but you don’t need arrows to defeat him. Tell me, when they insisted on going with him, and you did nothing to stop it, did you hope for something like this?”

Bharat smiles suddenly and laughs, brittle and barking. “Sita bhabi is forever chained away across the ocean and Lakshman lies near dead on a battlefield! Take them away, and what does Rama -- what does Rama have left?”

His grin dissolves into bitter, bitter tears and Mandavi catches him and draws him onto her shoulder. Sumitra Ma’s eyes are turned heavenwards, her lips mouthing silent pleas, while Shatrughan’s breath is ragged at the thought of the dagger plunging into the oldest wound he bears for once and for all. Twins do not part, ever.

Mandavi thinks of slipping into sleep the way they used to sink beneath the water, green and cool, in the golden haze that Mithila has become in her memory. Urmila claims that as her prerogative in Ayodhya’s highest tower, the black spire outlined against black somewhere just behind Mandavi.

She is Queen of Ayodhya — most unwillingly, and as an interim stand-in — but sovereignty sits on her head at the moment. Mandavi waits until Bharat has said his piece, concluding with, “The price we all pay for your ambitions, Mother. The price we all pay,” before she guides him back to the hut.

Briny tang sits heavy on her tongue like a seashore breeze, and she smells pungent _sanjeevani_ and earthy loam, fresh and marshy as a mountain after the rains have come in.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a scene where Hanuman passes by Ayodhya while retrieving the heavenly mountain of herbs and fills Bharat in on the demon-monkey war. _Sanjeevani_ is the herb that Hanuman uses to heal Lakshman when he falls.


End file.
